Paris day III

At 8.00 a.m. on the third day of my trip, I went to the Champs de Mars to take some pictures of the Eiffel Tower.

The Eiffel Tower

 

No need to spend the money to go up there, as the view is probably the same as nine years ago. But I promised a friend to send her a photo from there.
It was really nice at that time, because there were hardly any tourists. Just some people looking as tired as I felt and the ever present military.

After this first obligatory stop I took the Métro to the  Place de la Concorde. This is the place where the Guillotine stood during the french revolution.


Right up the steps on the left (seen from this picture), there begins the Jardin des Tuileries. You might know Manet`s painting "La Musique aux Tuileries". If you follow the road through this garden, you end up at the Louvre. But February is just not the right month for a nice walk there and I had another destination...

Musée de l`Orangerie

This museum was one of the reasons why I wanted to go to Paris in the first place. I arrived there at the opening hour, which was really good.
It`s a very small museum, but it`s the most wonderful museum I´ve ever been to. There are two oval rooms, designed by Monet. He painted four large pictures for each of the rooms. So if you sit in the middle of the room, you`re surrounded by water lilies. It feels a little bit like being in the middle of a pond.

I was almost alone there, because I arrived so early. If you want to visit this museum, I suggest that you do the same, because if it is really crowded you won`t be able to enjoy the peacful atmosphere.

Monet must have spent so many hours with these giant paintings. And what a great idea to design rooms like these. I would love to paint a picture this large one day, but where? There`s no room for it. I must say I envy Monet a bit for having this opportunity.

In the basement there are some more paintings of Renoir, Gauguin, Cézanne, Picasso and others.
Some of them are really interesting but I spent almost all the time on the upper level with the water
lilies.

  After three hours I left the Musée de l`Orangerie and walked across the Tuilleries garden to the Musée d`Orsay.

I remember my last visit in this museum and how I didn`t like it at all. But I didn`t really look at the art there, back then. Van Gogh is still none of my favourite painters, but I can see what fascinates others about him. And I can look at his paintings and learn something. I might even have spent a long moment in front of  "starry night", being close to admit that something in this picture touches me. Maybe. I`m not admitting anything now. But I might. Some day...

There are so many interesting and beautiful pieces of art in the Musée d`Orsay. So much to see! Every second painting was shown to us during art history lectures and I admired them in books. Still there`s always something new to discover. And the building itself is very nice to look at.
What helps a lot is the layout of the rooms. You can easily find the one painting you are looking for and if you walk through the rooms one after the other, it starts with the art of the Salon, continues on the upper floor with the impressionist paintings and ends with the post-impressionists.
I didn`t go to every room and I didn`t spend much time in front of the sculptures. But what I can say for certain is that if I ever have the opportunity to go there gain, I will certainly do that. By the way, if you want to make me happy: there`s this really big, really beautiful (and  really expensive) book with all the paintings of the Musée d´Orsay in it...

 

The towers of Notre - Dame

It was early evening when I almost ran over to Notre - Dame. The other day it was too late to climb the towers. I´m really glad that I made the effort to return; the gargoyles are definitely worth a visit!

 

Les Invalides

Les Invalides was just a short side trip. I was not really interested in the military museum, my destination was the chapel containing the tomb of Napoleon. I´ve always wanted to see it from the inside.











The dome over the tomb of Napoleon is impressive but not exceedingly so.
I think the chapel is Baroque, but that`s all I can tell you about it...

 

The dome and the court of the museum are really suitable for taking photos. But if I would have had to pay for the visit, it wouldn`t have been worth it.

Since I was close to becoming a ghost after running around for three days without much rest and food... wait, I was of course sparkling with energy and couldn`t wait to see the Catacombs of Paris.

I`m sure there are more impressive Catacombs, in Rome or elsewhere. But I liked the atmosphere.
It was dark outside when I went in. All the others where about my age and from time to time it got quite funny down there and during the time we had to spend waiting to be let in.
By the way, there`s a really funny souvenir shop over the road at the exit. They sell books about da Vinci and anatomy next to jelly skulls while there`s metal music playing in the background.  

 

 
 My last trip of the day. I took the Métro to Charles-de-Gaulle Étoile to see the Arc de Triomphe. I had never been up there at night and since it is open until 11.00 p.m. and there`s free admission for people under 26 it was the perfect finale for the day.
I had a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower and I even found some spanish tourists wo seemed worthy to hold my camera (I`m a bit choosy in terms of that) and take a photo of me in front of the Eiffel Tower. But it`s not allowed to publish pictures of the Eiffel Tower at night, so I just show you the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs - Elysées and hope that this is okay.



On Monday I spent a few hours in the Louvre to sketch some of the sculptures. When I left the museum a woman was playing Pachelbel`s Canon on the violin in the entrance to the Métro. Great acoustics down there! Definitely the second moment from this trip that I will store in my mind, hopefully forever.

My advise for you, after this weekend trip:
If you are under 26 and you want to visit Paris: go there now! If you are older than 26, interested in art and rich: do likewise. Paris is one big museum.




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